The Final Shot

Sometimes I explore the beach a little, but it’s almost like magic. I don’t know why, but after so many years of taking pictures in public places, it’s given me a good way of knowing where I need to be. I think about what’s going to happen, and where the people are going to be. I change very little.

In the beginning, I always had this fear that I wasn’t in the right place. But after a while that doubt goes away and you see that you are in the right place. It gives you confidence.

Then I put myself in a perfect position and I take the pictures. I don’t really move the camera unless something really strange happens.

I don’t take many pictures. I used to take seven, maybe eight pictures when I shot film. But now that I shoot middle format digital I take maybe 70 —which is still ridiculously few. We tried to do a project printing all the negatives that I shot. In 22 years I shot 4976 negatives, which is nothing.

With both film and digital, I never look through the camera. With the film camera there is no way to look through it, and with the digital camera the screen is too small – we have a computer that shows the screen.

Sometimes I have a guy who checks the sharpness and the lighting and that everything is technically correct, but I’m never looking through the camera myself. I look at the sea, I look at the place, and I look at the people. I just keep looking. It’s such a beautiful thing, to look.

Alex Kahl, "Massimo Vitali: I give importance to something that is not important at all" in wepresent, January 22, 2019.